Allison Lange

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Karl Kozak turns in a credible and promising directorial performance with Out of the Black, a pot-boiling drama about a decaying mining town and the nefarious behaviors of its denizens.

The film finds us in rural Pennsylvania, where angsty twentysomething Cole Malby (Tyler Christopher) and his quiet brother Patrick (Jason Widener) butcher meat and fix electronics in order to pay for a life filled with beer drinking and hell raising. What's with all the hair tearing? Their father died in a mine explosion 13 years in the past. An accident? Or does Cole remember veiled threats and a gunshot when he visited his pop on that fateful day? Even worse was when the young Cole took a shot at his abusive old man, hitting mom (Sally Kirkland) instead.